Fran Lebowitz Book Quotations

Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try.

Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications.

Having been unpopular in high school is not a just cause for book publication

I often used to say, the more parties there were for a book, the worse the book was.

If you want to get ahead in this world get a lawyer -- not a book.

...I believed passionately that Communists were a race of horned men who divided their time equally between the burning of Nancy Drew books and the devising of a plan of nuclear attack that would land the largest and most lethal bomb squarely upon the third-grade class of Thomas Jefferson School in Morristown, New Jersey.

Should novels generally be 600 pages? No, they should not. Half of writing, maybe 3/4 of writing, is editing. This seems to be a thing that has not gotten through to them. It's my impression that you could get rid of half of most of these books. These people are not good enough to be this long, but they're apparently also not good enough to be shorter.

To lose yourself in a book is the desire of the bookworm. I mean to be taken. That is my desire.

There are too many books. The books are terrible. And this is because you have been taught to have self-esteem.

Never judge a cover by its book.

When I was very little, say five or six, I became aware of the fact that people wrote books. Before that, I thought that God wrote books. I thought a book was a manifestation of nature, like a tree.

Until I was about 7, I thought books were just there, like trees. When I learned that people actually wrote them, I wanted to, too, because all children aspire to inhuman feats like flying. Most people grow up to realize they can't fly. Writers are people who don't grow up to realize they can't be God.

I hate academic mysteries. As soon as I come across the word 'don' and it's not someone's first name, I close the book.

When Toni Morrison said 'write the book you want to read,' she didn't mean everybody.

Things that people will say to me, mostly, is that you shouldn't have all these books. It's too expensive.

It's much easier to write a solemn book than a funny book. It's harder to make people laugh than it is to make them cry. People are always on the verge of tears.

Ever since I was a little child, I refused to see movies of books that I loved. Because you already know what Heidi looks like and she doesn't look like Shirley Temple.

Magazines all too frequently lead to books and should be regarded by the prudent as the heavy petting of literature.

If you feel the urge to write, just lie down and read a book: it will pass.

Think before you speak. Read before you think.